Defeating Mau Mau, creating Kenya
Subtitle: counterinsurgency, Civil War, and decolonization
By: Daniel Branch.
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: African studies -- 111
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 278
ISBN-13: 9780521113823; 9780521130905
Subjects: Mau Mau -- History -- 20th century; Kenya -- History -- Mau Mau Emergency, 1952-1960
Description: This book details the devastating Mau Mau civil war fought in Kenya during 1950s and the legacies of that conflict for the post-colonial state. There were as many Kikuyu who fought with the colonial government as there were loyalists who joined the Mau Mau rebellion. Focusing on the role of those loyalists, the book examines the ways in which residents of the country's Central Highlands sought to navigate a path through the bloodshed and uncertainty of civil war. It explores the instrumental use of violence, changes to allegiances, and the ways in which cleavages created by the war informed local politics for decades after the conflict's conclusion.--Back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : understanding loyalism in Kenya's Civil War; title: Vomiting the oath : the origins of loyalism in the growth of Mau Mau terror and counter-terror : March 1953; title: April 1954; title: From Mau Mau to home guard : the defeat of the insurgency; title: Loyalism, land and labour : the path to self-mastery; title: Loyalism in the age of decolonisation; title: Eating the fruits of uhuru : loyalists, Mau Mau and the post-colonial state; title: Conclusion : loyalism, decolonisation and Civil War.